The 2018 World Cup was supposed to be the Tournament of Neymar. His stunning move away from Barcelona a year earlier made him the most expensive player of all time and appeared to position him as Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi’s natural successor to the mantle of being the best on the planet. Leading Brazil to a World Cup title would’ve staked his claim to the throne. Instead, it turned out to be the Tournament of Neymaring—the summer’s meme sensation that had kids around the world feigning injury and rolling around in pantomime pain, as the Brazilian star himself did on the way to an underwhelming quarterfinal elimination.

After Kylian Mbappe, Neymar’s 19-year-old Paris Saint-Germain teammate (and the second most expensive player in football history), blazed by him to lift the World Cup trophy and build a case for the Ballon d’Or, Neymar tried to end the jokes and save face by making a #NeymarChallenge video of his own, employing the magical public-relations...